I'm not extinct! (yet...)

Once again, I'm afraid I have to begin a post with an admission / apology: I have been silent across pretty much all social channels for over a year now and whilst I am looking forward to creating more palaeoart and being a more active practitioner again, I'd like to reflect a little on why I've been silent in the digital realm for so long. Reasons for my apparent absence are varied; some are really positive life events, but others are more challenging.  I hope that sharing a few of my personal experiences might help others who find themselves in the same position as me.

1. That thing that happened...

I recognise that Covid-19 affected everybody everywhere and I am extraordinarily fortunate to live in the affluent, well-vaccinated Global North, where we can afford to speak about covid in the past tense. But still, I sometimes have to remind myself of just how unnerving it was in the early days of food and toiletries shortages, with the whole country under effective house-arrest, seriously contemplating what we'd do if civil society and rule of law broke down and no sense of when it would all be over and we could see our loved-ones again.

For myself, I determined to try and use that time as a gift: to re-evaluate what was really meaningful to me; work out what direction I really wanted my life to go and not feel beholden to serve any imagined social-media pressure to share every thought or achievement (I tweet, therefore I am). 

Which brings us to a big decision:

2. Back to School!

That's right: I'm officially back in the formal education system and studying part-time for a Bsc in Earth Sciences at Birkbeck Univerity, London! 

This is a really exciting step for me - I had wanted to train as a palaeontologist as a kid, but when I was a teenager I couldn't find any dedicated Palaeontology courses in the UK. I won't go too deep into the details of why I got turned off following science as a career (that's a whole separate blog post), but I can say that my childhood was hard, having lost my Mum when I was just 10 and my teenage years were dismally depressing. It didn't help that I loved science, but ALL the science teachers in my school, without exception, were total psychopaths who made me dread science lessons. Throw in a smattering of casual sexism ("girls can't do Maths, there aren't any woman palaeontologists" etc) and it was not a great environment for my mind to be in, so I abandoned my dreams and have regretted it ever since.

I haven't written about going back to study as an adult (I just turned 39 this month) because it feels like there's so much pressure and expectation that goes with it. I enrolled in 2020/21, so I started my new uni experience remotely under lockdown for the entire first year. The first two years of study have been hard: Year 1 involved a lot of squinting at minerals in thin-section and interpreting geological maps and Year 2 has been a lot of the same with only one module in invertebrate palaeo. and another on earth History, both of which I absolutely loved. 

There's a lot of maths though, which I really struggle with (my experiences in primary school still bring me out in tears of frustration); there's a lot of uncertainty (what am I going to do with this degree? Can I justify the expense?); and then there's the nagging feeling of it all being too little too late at my age. 

The truth is it's taken a huge amount of bravery to take this step (I wish I'd had the financial stability to take it years ago). Ultimately, when it came down to it I decided that preserving my sanity was more important than anything, so I've allowed myself time-off from the internet in general during term-time. Now that lockdowns are behind us though and my course curriculum is opening up to more engaging subjects in Year 3, I'm feeling braver about letting the world know what I'm up to.

Our class Field Trip to Scotland was the first excursion many of us had been on in two years! The extreme cold made bearable here by great friends. (although some other people made the ticks seem like pleasant company...)

Tiffin the Dinosaur helping me with my notes for assessed field classes

Sadly, the most charismatic fossils you'll find up on the West coat of Scotland are these Pre-cambrian algal mats. (They're even worse dancers than they are conversationalists)

3. Leviathans

I have been working on and off alongside work and studies for well over a year now on a series of illustrations for a short youTube documentary on large ocean filter-feeders. I've been working on this in collaboration with Klaus Stiefel who co-authored the paper on which the film is based.

Naturally, with covid lockdowns in Europe and Asia, plus the usual priorities of work and now my studies we both have had to shelve the project from time to time while we work on other things. Progress has been slow but steady though and I've been hoarding all the stills for the animations over the past 18 months, so whilst I haven't been actively sharing that much, I have still been busy making palaeoart in the background. I'm hoping we can get this project wrapped up this year and we can both enjoy the fruits of our labours!

4. Volunteering at the NHM

I'm delighted to say that I've just finished a stint of volunteering at the NHM (South Kensington's) dinosaur collections! This experience really has reignited my love of palaeontology and inspired me to keep going with my studies and my passions. 

I had to arrange several weeks of compressed hours at work though to accommodate the time, so that kind of leads us nicely to my final point...

5. Burnout

Approaching 40, I feel like I need to catch up on some lost years and I've been throwing myself into studies, planning side projects and field-trips, and pushing myself hard to do so much because it doesn't seem to matter how much I do, I always feel inadequate.

Basically, I've had so much on I haven't had time to write about it! I've tried to be a little kinder to myself though and embrace just doing things for pure pleasure and resist the feeling that if I don't advertise my efforts or share my work it will somehow become meaningless.

Final thoughts

We've all been taken for a pretty rough ride recently and life never gets any easier. That's why it's important to take time out for yourself; work out what you love, why you love it and then make as much time for it as possible! 

And when all else fails, go hug a dinosaur.